TaxTMI 
TaxTMI 
TaxTMI 
2021 (10) TMI 1450
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.... JMFC Maddur. The complainant, at whose behest the First Information Report "FIR" was registered for an offence punishable Under Section 306 read with Section 34 of the Indian Penal Code 1860 "IPC", and the State of Karnataka are in appeal against the judgment of the High Court dated 29 May 2020. The Single Judge was persuaded to quash the proceedings on the ground that the continuation of the prosecution "would [be] a travesty of justice and be a sheer waste of time", besides requiring the Accused-Respondent "to undergo the rigors of a lengthy trial". A. Facts 2. On 6 December 2016, a complaint was lodged at Maddur Police Station at 20:00 hours by the Appellant who is the brother of the deceased. The complaint narrates that the Appellant's brother was working as a driver for the Accused-second Respondent. The second Respondent is an officer of the State of Karnataka and is employed in the capacity of a Special Land Acquisition Officer "SLAO". According to the complaint, the deceased would travel from Bengaluru once in a month to visit the family home and meet his family and friends. Among his friends was Shashi Kumar. It is alleged that on 4 December 2016 the deceased m....
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....d were found. The suicide note was uploaded by the deceased on his Facebook account through his mobile. The complaint narrates that the suicide note has referred to the illegal activities of the Accused in amassing wealth in excess of Rs. 100 crores, converting black money into white and transferring funds from the bank account of the deceased through his mobile to the accounts of the relatives of the Accused. The complaint alleged that the Accused had threatened the deceased with death and harassed him as a result of which the deceased, having suffered mental stress, committed suicide by consuming poison. 5. The FIR was registered at 20:00 hours on 6 December 2016. The second Respondent-Accused, an SLAO for Bengaluru City, and another driver of his car were named as Accused. The suicide note recorded by the deceased allegedly in his own handwriting contains a detailed narration of the properties alleged to have been illegally acquired by the second Respondent. Besides detailing the properties which were acquired by the Accused in paragraphs 1 to 13, the suicide note refers to: (i) The transfer of funds in several lakhs of rupees by the Accused to his relatives by using the cell....
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.... For a person who has made such a detailed account of twenty transactions in the suicide note, it can be prudently expected that the deceased would have furnished details of the threats administrated to him by the Accused; (iii) In the unnumbered paragraph of the suicide note "the totally different story" is set out, stating that the Accused threatened to kill the deceased since there was a shortage of cash to the tune of Rs. 8 lacs for which the Accused suspected the deceased to be responsible; (iv) The deceased held the Accused responsible for withholding his salary for three months; (v) Though a query was put to the Government Pleader and counsel for the complainant as to whether the investigation had thrown up any material which corroborated the allegations set out in the suicide note, the GP submitted that "they have not been able to unearth any material to corroborate any of the allegations"; (vi) Though the petition was instituted before the High Court on 18 April 2017, and was pending for over three years, no corroborative material had been produced before the Court by the investigating agency; (vii) Even assuming that the Accused has amassed huge wealth, that wou....
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....e Single Judge has given rise to two special leave petitions Under Article 136 of the Constitution: one by the complainant and the second by the State of Karnataka. B. Submission of parties 11. Mr. Mahesh Thakur, has appeared for the complainant in support of his appeal. In the appeal filed by the State of Karnataka, Mr. V.N. Raghupathy has appeared and made submissions. The Respondent-Accused has been represented in the course of his submissions by Mr. Sharan Thakur. 12. Mr. Mahesh Thakur, learned Counsel appearing on behalf of the complainant urged the following submissions: (i) The matter being at the stage of investigation and the second Respondent having been enlarged on bail, the Single Judge has manifestly erred in quashing the FIR as a result of which the entire investigation has been scuttled midstream; (ii) The High Court has completely failed to notice the seriousness and gravity of the allegations made against the Accused; (iii) The precedents of this Court indicate that in exercising its jurisdiction Under Section 482 Code of Criminal Procedure, the High Court does not function as a court of appeal or revision and the jurisdiction has to be exercised with care....
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.... context of Section 306, the instigation must be to an extent where there is no option but to commit suicide; (ii) The allegations in the complaint and in the suicide note fall short of the ingredients to establish a case of abetment and hence the essential requirements of the offence Under Section 306 have not been established; (iii) The Single judge of the High Court had furnished reasons for indicating that the allegations contained in the suicide note are inherently improbable; (iv) The version of the complainant is full of contradictions and inconsistencies; (v) The suicide note fails to mention any overt act by the Accused which would have driven the deceased to commit suicide. During the period between 11 December 2016, when the Accused was taken into custody and 29 December 2016, when he was enlarged on bail by the Sessions Court at Mandya, extensive enquiries and investigation were carried out by the investigating agency including the State Police and ACP Karnataka, in spite of which no incriminating evidence has been found; and (vi) It is a well settled principle of law that in cases involving abetment of suicide there must be a number of direct or indirect acts....
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....e second Respondent-Accused who was an SLAO, worth over Rs. 100 crores; (b) The second Respondent-Accused having converted approximately Rs. 100 crores into currency notes of various denominations; (c) The knowledge of the deceased with respect the illegal activities of the Accused; (d) The Accused having used the deceased for the conversion of currency notes amounting to over Rs. 75 crores; (e) The payment of the salary of the deceased, who was a driver having been stopped for three months; (f) A threat of murder being administered to the deceased following a shortage in the currency; and (g) The deceased having decided to end his life by consuming poison, having suffered at the hands of the Accused. 18. In this backdrop, it is impossible on a judicious purview of the contents of the complaint and the suicide note for a judicial mind to arrive at a conclusion that a case for quashing the FIR had been established. In arriving at that conclusion, the Single Judge has transgressed the well settled limitations on the exercise of the powers Under Section 482 Code of Criminal Procedure and has encroached into a territory which is reserved for a criminal trial. 19. The High....
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....as not been collected and produced before the Court and the issues involved, whether factual or legal, are of wide magnitude and cannot be seen in their true perspective without sufficient material. 20. In Bhajan Lal (supra), this Court laid down the principles for the exercise of the jurisdiction by the High Court in exercise of its powers Under Section 482 of the Code of Criminal Procedure to quash an FIR. Justice Ratnavel Pandian laid down the limits on the exercise of the power Under Section 482 Code of Criminal Procedure for quashing the FIR and observed: 102. In the backdrop of the interpretation of the various relevant provisions of the Code under Chapter XIV and of the principles of law enunciated by this Court in a series of decisions relating to the exercise of the extraordinary power Under Article 226 or the inherent powers Under Section 482 of the Code which we have extracted and reproduced above, we give the following categories of cases by way of illustration wherein such power could be exercised either to prevent abuse of the process of any court or otherwise to secure the ends of justice, though it may not be possible to lay down any precise, clearly defined and ....
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.... two tests: i) whether the allegations made in the complaint, prima facie constitute an offence; and ii) whether the allegations are so improbable that a prudent man would not arrive at the conclusion that there is sufficient ground to proceed with the complaint. Before proceeding further, it is imperative to briefly discuss the law on the abetment of suicide to determine if a prima facie case Under Section 306 of the Indian Penal Code has been made against the Respondent-Accused. 22. Section 306 of the Indian Penal Code provides for punishment of the abetment of suicide: 306. Abetment of suicide--If any person commits suicide, whoever abets the commission of such suicide, shall be punished with imprisonment of either description for a term which may extend to ten years, and shall also be liable to fine. Section 107 of the Indian Penal Code defines the expression "abetment": 107. Abetment of a thing- A person abets the doing of a thing, who-- First.--Instigates any person to do that thing; or Secondly.--Engages with one or more other person or persons in any conspiracy for the doing of that thing, if an act or illegal omission lakes place in pursuance of that conspiracy, a....
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....nd (ii) that the Accused had the intention to provoke, urge or encourage the deceased to commit suicide while acting in the manner noted above. Undoubtedly, presence of mens rea is the necessary concomitant of instigation. 20. In the background of this legal position, we may advert to the case at hand. The question as to what is the cause of a suicide has no easy answers because suicidal ideation and behaviours in human beings are complex and multifaceted. Different individuals in the same situation react and behave differently because of the personal meaning they add to each event, thus accounting for individual vulnerability to suicide. Each individual's suicidability pattern depends on his inner subjective experience of mental pain, fear and loss of self-respect. Each of these factors are crucial and exacerbating contributor to an individual's vulnerability to end his own life, which may either be an attempt for self-protection or an escapism from intolerable self. This has been reiterated in the decision in Amalendu Pal @ Jhantu v. State of West Bengal (2010) 1 SCC 707, where it has been observed: 12. [...] It is also to be borne in mind that in cases of alleged ....
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....jectures and such an exercise is beyond the domain of proceeding Under Section 482 of the Code of Criminal Procedure. The High Court has proceeded to scrutinize what has been disclosed during the investigation, ignoring that the investigation had been stayed by an interim order of the High Court, during the pendency of the proceedings Under Section 482. 27. The High Court observed that a prima facie case for the commission of offence Under Section 306 of the Indian Penal Code is not made out since: i) the suicide note does not describe the specific threats; ii) details of the alleged demand of Rs. 8 lacs from the deceased by the Respondent-Accused are not set out in the suicide note; and iii) no material to corroborate the allegations detailed in the suicide note has been unearthed by the investigating agency. The High Court observed that since the deceased took considerable time to write a twelve page suicide note, "it would have been but natural for the author to set out the details". The High Court has evidently travelled far beyond the limits of its inherent power Under Section 482 Code of Criminal Procedure since instead of determining whether on a perusal of the complaint, a....
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....ed threats from Accused. Even the allegation of the demand for repayment of Rs. 8 lakhs rings hollow as neither the prosecution nor the de-facto complainant have been able to place an iota of material that the deceased was or had in fact been in possession of huge sum of money. Further, the observation of the High Court that there is no material to corroborate the allegations made in the suicide note is erroneous since it is not a consideration for the High Court while exercising its power Under Section 482 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, particularly in view of the fact that the trial has not begun and the Single Judge had stayed the investigation in the criminal complaint. 28. The Single Judge, other than deciding on the merits of the case while exercising the power Under Section 482 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, has also made observations diminishing the importance of mental health. The mental health of a person cannot be compressed into a one size fits all approach. In paragraph 37 of the impugned judgment, the Single Judge observed: 37. It is not the case of the deceased that the Accused had deprived him of his wealth or have committed acts that have shattered his ....